Field Trip

For the past three or four years now, I've had the pleasure of serving on VEA's Fitz Turner Commission for Human Relations and Civil Rights. Our commission, most notably, is the group that sponsors the Fitz Turner Award, The Mary Futrell Award, and the Youth Award for VEA. In my estimation, however, our primary responsibility is to monitor human relations and civil rights issues in our state and nation.

At our fall meeting over the weekend, we had the opportunity to hear from Lacy Ward, Jr. of the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville, VA. Mr. Ward spoke to our commission along with our guest, VEA President Kitty Boitnott, for about a half hour. Rarely have I been so engaged in a subject. Mr. Ward's presentation was passionate and insightful.

So what's the big deal with the Moton Museum? Well I suspect that many Virginians do not know exactly how pivotal a role one small high school in Central Virginia was in to the civil rights movement. From the website, here's a taste.

The Moton High School is a nationally significant site in the history of the civil rights movement. Here a student-organized strike in April 1951 led to a federal court case on the essential issue of equal education for all Americans. It was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States as part of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education suit.

The Brown decision stands today as one of the Court’s most important actions, ruling that separate educational systems are inherently unequal and that all jurisdictions must cease to permit segregation within their schools.

Mr. Ward is hoping to get support for a new exhibit in the museum that celebrates the "Freedom Schools" that sprang up in response to "Massive Resistance" with the complete shut down of the school system in Prince Edward County.

After our meeting on Saturday, members of the commission took a field trip to the new Civil Rights Memorial at capital Square in Richmond. Below are a series of photographs from the memorial.